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How does God(s)'s existence give life meaning?[W: 192]

Adagio said:
What justifies a's knowledge of x?

I'm sure it's different for any given a and x.

Adagio said:
What you're describing here is a "given".

No. I wasn't describing anything. I was stating the closure principle, and saying it's false.

You don't seem to have followed this thread of the conversation at all. Here's how it's gone so far (with irrelevant steps taken out):

Me: Knowledge entails belief

You: No it doesn't. Some people have asserted that knowledge is closed under entailment. But there are good arguments for not accepting that knowledge is closed under entailment.

Me: The entailment principle (knowledge entails belief) is not the same as the closure principle (knowledge is closed under entailment). Those two principles don't have remotely the same meaning. The former is true, the latter is false. I don't know why you're bringing up the closure principle.

You: (quoting me describing the closure principle) What you're describing here is a "given."

Me: What? I have no idea where you're coming from at this point. I've never said anything about a given, or anything about the closure principle except that it's false. And you have yet to address the entailment principle--which is different from the closure principle.

Adagio said:
Ash: I'm curious what account you would give of entailment that does not rely on particular or general identity.

Adagio: Give me an example of what your talking about.

You copied some text from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy into one of your posts (unattributed, I might add). Part of the text read "Since knowledge entails belief...". I take it you mean to assert the entailment principle, even though prior to that point (and later) you have argued that knowledge is not a kind of belief. I have asked you to explicate your account of entailment here, because I must assume it doesn't rely on identity. I assume that, because you've argued in that vein multiple times. If knowledge is not a kind of belief, why does it entail belief?

Adagio said:
Then I'd say that your unfamiliar with science and how it works. If that were true, Einstein would never have questioned the physices from the past.

This doesn't seem to follow at all. Einstein could accept something, and still question it. So can I.

If you're saying that one can only accept what one cannot question, in my case, there are probably only a hundred or so propositions, the vast majority of them uninteresting, that I would accept.

Adagio said:
All scientific theories are constantly challenged.

Really? I haven't read any challenges lately to phlogiston theory. Nor have I read any challenges lately to phrenology. Those are scientific theories.

Perhaps you had better say "All currently accepted scientific theories are constantly challenged." But this is also false, unless by "challenged" you mean to include skepticism that never leaves the mind of the person who's doing the challenging. When was the last time someone published a paper presenting some kind of challenge to the laws of thermodynamics? When was the last time someone published a paper presenting a challenge to the heliocentric theory of the solar system? When was the last time someone published a paper presenting a challenge to the theory of plate tectonics?

Adagio said:
Religions are examples of closed systems. They reason from the Top-down. They begin with a premise and then look for things that justify the premise as verification.

Again, this seems pretty obviously false. I would agree that some religionists do this. But I doubt very seriously that most do.

Adagio said:
I know that 2+2=4. It doesn't require belief or faith.

I've not said anything about faith in this discussion, so I don't know why you're bringing it up.

But anyway, if you know that 2+2=4, the fact that you know it entails that you believe it, at least so long as you are a rational person. You might treat a Moorean assertion as involving a modal operator with the usual scope problems. But in this case, it doesn't seem like this'll be much help. Here's why:

Let's designate '@' as the modal operator "believes."

You might argue that:

~@(2+2=4)

isn't equivalent as

@ ~(2+2=4)

Since the first entails that you could remain agnostic about whether 2+2=4 is true. But knowing that 2+2=4 makes it pretty difficult to say that one is agnostic about whether 2+2=4.

Adagio said:
If somebody asks me to answer that problem, I don't say "I believe the answer is 4".

Well, so what? If someone asks me to answer it, I don't say that either. But I believe that 2+2=4.

Adagio said:
Then if you can think of a few, and it's a small set...what are they? I asked you this: "If your own beliefs come into conflict with the truth...which do you accept? The truth, or do you hold to a belief demonstrated as false?" Are you telling me that you would hold to the belief in the face of contradicting evidence?

Yes. That is exactly what I'm saying. An example would be my belief that the tenets of National Socialism are morally wrong. Another example would by my belief that abusing children is wrong. Another example would be my belief that I love my daughter and my wife. I can think of others, but in no case would I revise those sorts of beliefs.

Adagio said:
I listed them. Did you not read what I posted? What your speaking of is the Epistemic Closure Principle.

Yes, I've read your posts. In detail, multiple times. You did not argue against the entailment principle. You argued against the closure principle, a principle for which I have not argued (indeed, I didn't even introduce it into the thread). I think the closure principle is false. I think the entailment principle is true (in almost all cases, anyway). They're different principles.

Adagio said:
The 3 major religions certainly are.

By 3 major religions, which do you mean? Do you mean the three major Abrahamic religions? Well...I suppose it doesn't matter, because those are not closed systems, at least in any sense by which I understand that term. Maybe you have some definition of it that makes sense.

All three of these religions have changed over time. All three have new additions and approaches in their theologies. All three have changed, and changing, political structures. All three have changed, and changing, concepts of their scriptures.

Maybe you mean something else by "closed system." If so, you'll have to explain what you mean.

Adagio said:
I would regard buddhism more as a philosophy but I'm sure others would argue otherwise. Many types of Buddhism, for example, are effectively or explicitly a-theistic, either rejecting gods or simply not bothering with them in any fashion.

I don't know of a sect of Buddhism that literally rejects all gods. The attitude among some Theravedan and Hinayana sects seems to be that questions about God are not meaningful to the core problem facing human beings, and so it's not a question that is taken up. The Mahayana and Vajrayoga Buddhist traditions acknowledge the existence and importance of gods.

Adagio said:
Although Buddhism is perhaps the best known atheistic religion, there are others, such as Jainism and some mystical forms of Hinduism.

It's questionable whether Jainism is actually atheistic. Like Siddhartha, Vardhamana thought that questions about the traditional Vedic gods, or involvement with them, isn't important. The Tirthankaras, however, are sometimes said to reside in the realm of the gods. Whether that's a metaphor or not, who knows?

Adagio said:
I don't know of a religion that doesn't have some foundational structure or doctrine that serves as the authority or basis for itself. Can you give me an example of one?

I can't think of one either, but that's not what you said. What you said was that all religions are authoritarian. An authority need not be authoritarian. For example, the Dalai Lama is an authority in Vajrayana Buddhism. But he does not try to control the lives of his followers. Buddhist monks usually live under pretty strict rules, but they agree to them. They are free to leave at any time. I suppose the Pope is a bit more authoritarian, but even in Catholocism, there's a fair bit of tolerance for new points of view (I would grant that this has not always been the case).

Adagio said:
What religion doesn't require belief in it's doctrine?

I can't think of a single one that does. Christianity would exist regardless of whether any given adherent believed in its doctrine or not. So would Judaism. so would Islam. So would Taoism. So would the Yezidis. Etc.

Adagio said:
And what does brainwashing have to do with this? People can accept or reject religions for reasons that have nothing to do with "brainwashing".

You didn't say "accept." You said "require." I don't even know how that would work, but if it does, however that might be, the religion that requires belief is likely to be ready to back up the requirement with force.

Adagio said:
First of all I reject the premise that this is associated with fiction.

You mean, you don't think the phrase has any connection to discussions of fiction? I know I said I don't usually use wikipedia as a source, but since this is a question of how ideas are associated in the public consciousness, wikipedia would be not merely a source, but evidence. Go to wikipedia and search the phrase "suspension of disbelief."
Adagio said:
Belief in something doesn't mean that the subject is fiction.

I never said otherwise. Indeed, I've said just the opposite several times.

Adagio said:
You may be attempting to "associate" it with fiction, but I reject that notion. It's purely subjective on your part. George W. Bush may tell us that Iraq has WMD, and we accept that uncritically. We suspend our disbelief when we do that.

It seems more correct to say that we suspend the normal functioning of our critical faculties. 'Suspension of disbelief' implies that there is a state of disbelief which is suspended. This is why it's associated with fiction. When we pick up a novel, we know the declarative sentences in the novel do not purport to make true claims of the actual world. Technically, novels are bunches of lies, strung together. But for reasons well beyond the scope of this thread, we suspend our default state of disbelief, and allow ourselves to relate to the characters and events described.

By contrast, when Bush (or whoever) says that there are WMDs in Iraq, the default state is not a belief that he's lying (well, OK, maybe in his case). The default state of a reasonable person is to suspend judgment, not disbelief, until hearing Bush's case. Critical faculties are then applied, and we decide whether the case is sufficient to justify belief in Bush's claim.
 
Adagio said:
So your anaylsis that suspension of disbelief equalling fiction makes no sense.

Where do you get the idea that I analyzed suspension of disbelief, and found it to be identical to fiction? What would that even mean?

Adagio said:
What are they based on? What reason would you have to subscribe to a religion?

I suspect the main reason has to do with personal experience.

Adagio said:
Then tell what it's based on? You keep denying this and saying it isn't true, but when I ask you for the basis you refuse to provide it.

If you're saying I've refused to tell you what a foundational statement would be based on, that's false. I have told you, a number of times: nothing. That's the meaning of a foundational statement. It's not in that group of statements that, as propositions, require justification. A foundationalist will argue that this is how to think of foundations.
If you want to argue that even foundational statements must receive support, then you cannot do it by continually demanding an account of their support. That begs the question--that is, you're assuming as a premise that foundational statements need support, and then concluding that foundational statements need support. Instead, you should find some other way to argue that foundational statements need support, without assuming, as a premise, that they do.

Adagio said:
We're talking about a positive methodology for a world view. Tell me what that methodology is based on?

We are? How do you figure that? What is a positive methodology for a worldview?

Adagio said:
Then tell me, what is the reason for the religion? What is its purpose? Why does it even exist?

Well, with the caveat that no one can know with complete certainty, I would place my money on experience. Of the religions that tell stories about how the religions themselves get started, those stories all involve a prophet of some kind getting some kind of experience. There are some pretty powerful arguments that come out of neurolinguistics which suggest that people don't invent very many concepts with no experiential basis whatsoever. And the findings of neurotheology and psychology suggest quite strongly that some people naturally have religious experiences.

Adagio said:
And what justifies it's claims as authoritative?

You'd have to give me an example of such a claim before I could comment.

Adagio said:
Yes, you know that there are asteroids and balls and urns, but you cannot know how many asteroids there are in the solar system. Why stop there? How about the entire universe? It's not knowable. You've offered hypotheticals that couldn't be demonstrated and then expect me or anybody else to assume that a person makes a lucky guess, and that it's true?

Not actually true. This is really strange to me that you don't understand this simple point. You've surely seen someone who made a lucky guess before, no?
You seem to think I'm claiming something like this:

Suppose a guy in a room with an urn makes a lucky guess about the number of balls in the urn. Ha! Lucky guess! That means it's true! Psychic powers! Woo-hoo!

No, I'm not saying anything remotely like this.

Look, answer me this: can you imagine a situation in which you're in a room with an urn, and you make a guess as to what's in the urn, and it turns out to be right? I'm not asking you whether you think that's likely to happen, or whether it ever will happen in the actual world. I'm just asking whether that situation, just as I have described it, with nothing added, is conceivable.

I can conceive of myself sitting in a room with an urn, and making a lucky guess, which turns out to be correct, about what's in the urn.

If this is conceivable, then we can reason about what the case means.

Adagio said:
In the case of the balls in the urn, if you can count 5 balls in the urn then you can demonstrate that. There is no guess that proves the truth of a belief. Belief isn't a factor.

I've never said the guess proved the truth of anything. I never said the guess served as justification for anything. All I said was, the guess was a lucky guess; it happens to have turned out right. Furthermore, and irrationally, the man making the guess believed it was right prior to checking.

Again, I have to say, you read way, way too much into what I write, and it's turned this conversation into a big time-waster. I think we would both benefit if you stopped attributing to me principles or propositions which I do not support.

As for belief and knowlege: just tell me how you'll handle Moorean assertions. Tell me why I should think the man was being rational if, after looking in the urn and seeing that there were five balls there, he said:

"Now that I've looked, I know there are five balls in that urn. But, dad gummit! I do not believe there are five balls in that urn!"

Adagio said:
You can do anything you want, but that doesn't make your argument valid. The anticedent is the propositional component of a conditional proposition whose truth is the condition for the truth of the consequent. In "if p then q", "p" is the antecedent. You need to demonstrate P is true.

Why do I need to do that, to evaluate the truth-value of the conditional? Conditionals are true whenever the antecedent is false.

They're also true when both the antecedent and consequent are true.

They're only false when the antecedent is true, and the conclusion false.

Adagio said:
I assume you are referring to YOU in the general sense, and not to me personally.

No, I meant you personally, though also in the general sense of "anyone who agrees with the proposition in question." You are to be included in that set, unless you wish to withdraw the quoted comment.

Adagio said:
That's what I've been saying all along. "He has a lucky guess and that doesn't translate into Truth regardless of any belief."

Yes, but you've not been grasping the rest of the point. Part of the hang-up seems to be that you think I'm denying that what makes the guess true is whether there are five balls in the urn or not.

Adagio said:
Sometimes criticism appears unduly harsh. I'm sure Plato can deal with it.

Wait a minute: I didn't mean harsh in a psychological sense. I meant harsh in the sense that your argument amounts to an ad hominem against Plato, unless you think for some reason his social and political philosophy is a direct consequence of his theory of knowledge. Otherwise, you have no rational reason to reject his theory of knowledge. You can reasonably do so on other grounds, but not because you think he got his social and political philosophy wrong.

Adagio said:
You want me to prove that a deductively valid syllogism is always true? I've done this several times already.

No, you have not. This cannot be done, because a deductively valid syllogism can be false. Look:

P1: Einstein is a five-story-tall radioactive pigsty.
P2: All five-story-tall radioactive pigstys have entered menopause.
C1: Therefore, Einstein has entered menopause.

That's deductively valid. Neither the premises nor the conclusion are true.

Adagio said:
If it is true that A = B and C = A, then it also has to be true that C = B. It has to be.

Now, what is your basis for making such a claim? I mean, given the fact that you keep pushing the point of view that foundational statements must have some basis, you surely have a basis for this claim. If your basis is something like "well, it's just dumb to deny this," that's technically an ad hominem argument against anyone who would deny it. Not terribly rational.

Adagio said:
Unlike the conclusions arrived at via induction which are only probable, conclusions arrived at via deduction are guaranteed 100% true---IF THE PREMISES ARE TRUE AND INTERPRETED LOGICALLY. If the premises are true, then the conclusion Must be true. Do you take exception to this?

Sure. What do you mean by "if the premises are...interpreted logically"? Do you mean, the conclusion is guaranteed to be true only if we put little letters beside the logical atoms? That seems obviously false. Otherwise, you'll have to explain what you mean.

Adagio said:
How about this one:

Premise1. All philosphers understand the catagorical deductive syllogism
Premise 2. ashurbanipal does not understand the catagorical deductive syllogism
conclusion: ashurbanipal is not a philsopher.

I would say premise 1 is false. Premise 2 is false for the same reason 1 is.

Adagio said:
Or perhaps the Modus Tollens form:

IF a person is a philosopher, then he understands the catagorical deductive syllogism
Ashurbanipal doesn't understand the catagorical deductive syllogism.
Therefore: ashurbanipal is not a philosopher.

Again, premise 1 is false. Also, this is not deductively valid. You need a premise which says "Ashurbanipal is a person." Alternately, you could have one that said "only persons are philosophers." Then it would be deductively valid.

Anyway, what do you mean by "understands the categorical deductive syllogism"? I understand, and I think most philosophers understand, these sorts of forms about as well as an auto mechanic understands motor vehicles. But this leaves a lot out.

Consider: Aristotle accepted the categorical syllogism. He was skeptical of hypothetical syllogisms. He said that he understood fully why such words as "all," "some," and "none" carried logical force. But "if" seemed, well, iffy. He didn't understand the conditional. For a little over 2200 years, logicians of such stature as Peter Abelard or GFW Liebniz used the hypothetical syllogism, but also wondered about it.

It took Gottlob Frege publishing the Begriffschrifft to show that by quantifying over predicate-variable pairs, the conditional could be made to do all the work that categories (though by then, they were called 'sets') do. Due to a rather unfortunate choice of notation, his system isn't in use. But he showed us how to do it.

But conditionals remain one of the most studied, and most questioned, subjects in philosophy of logic. Here's a weird one:

if you want a biscuit, there's one in the jar.

We know more or less what the person saying this means. But on the fourth line of the standard truth table for material implication, it appears that if the person doesn't want a biscuit, there isn't one in the jar. Now that's a weird result. It seems like there should be a biscuit in the jar regardless of whether the person wants one or not. There's not a settled consensus on how to handle these "biscuit conditionals." This suggests we don't really understand conditionals, and now by implication, we also don't understand categorical syllogisms, either.

Again, we understand them at least as well as the guy who works on your car engine understands the engine. We can grab parts in the form of propositions, symbolize them if we need to, or leave them in natural language if we don't. We can put arguments together, and take them apart. So we understand logic the way a mechanic understands a car. But how well is that? He certainly doesn't know every fact there is to know about the engine. Similarly, I know very few philosophers who would stand by the assertion we know everything there is to know about syllogisms.

Adagio said:
You seem to be skeptical of the idea that If the premises of a catagorical deductive syllogism are true, then the conclusion MUST always be true. I'm skeptical of your understanding of this logical form.

It depends. I am sometimes skeptical of logic, though I use it daily. I do a lot of work in the foundations of logic, though mainly (lately) in the foundations of formal modal sematics, especially the Barcan formula and the S4-S5 axioms.

At the end of the day, however, a bunch of logicians just got together and decided that certain very basic and very uninteresting propositions were to be taken as true. I agree that, given the nature of human thinking, we have to have some foundation somewhere. On the other hand, I doubt very seriously that we've really figured out what those foundations are.

That said, the reason for my demanding proof is exposed, above, in the bolded paragraph. I'll be interested to see your response. I don't think there's a way out that isn't fraught with fatal problems.
 
Ok. I've been away for a while. But I'm back and looking at this post.

You say this: "I've spent my life studying it. To answer your question, no, I've never run into this problem. Not once. I cannot think of a single philosopher, out of hundreds or thousands whose papers and books I have read that would think this is a problem. What you seem to be saying is this:"

It appears that we are talking about the problem of infinite regress, and you seem to be saying that in all your years of teaching philosophy and studying it, you've never encountered this? Is that it? If it is, then I have to seriously question what on earth you've been reading all these years? Infinite regress is not only an issue in philosophy, but an issue in Logic. You can refer to Tarski on that, and I'm sure you've heard of him.

I have not said that infinite regress = circular reasoning. I said that it leads to it. It leads to it, because when caught in a spiral of infinite regress, there is no way out of it, without saying at some point, I believe it because I believe it. You cannot base a belief on itself with using the belief as its own justification. So you are left with two options: follow the topic into infinite regress...OR, take a stand using that stand to justify the stand. That's circular reasoning. Are we clear?

The example that you use with numbers continually divided by two will never resolve. That's pretty obvious. But numbers are not abstract ideas. An abstract concept about any issue that bases itself on some foundation fails to address the foundation for the foundation. If you are going to presume foundationalist thinking, then it goes without saying that the foundation must also have a foundation as it cannot be it's own foundation. If you're going to claim foundationalism and deny it it's own foundation, you fall into a completely hypocritical position by creating a double standard to support the view. You seem to keep claiming that foundational thinking requires no further foundation, which fails logically.

Another simple case would be where God2 justifies the sayings of God1, and God3 justifies the sayings of God2, and so on. Again, no circularity. It leads to all the usual paradoxes of infinity. It's totally unconvincing. But it's not circular, and doesn't entail circularity. If you want to convince me otherwise, formalize such a system and prove it.

Again you miss the point. Of course there is no circularity. You're locked into infinite regress. And you'll stay there without ever justifying God 1. You jump to God 2 and then God 3 ad infinitum. There is no reason to accept that as a justification for anything. You can try to continue this endless exercise but you'll never find the basis for the basis of what you claim. At some point if pressed long enough, your only escape is through circular reasoning. I believe God 1 because I believe it without any further justification. Or you can admit that there will never be anything to conclude the exercise. In which case, if you still choose to believe it, you'll use it for its own justification.

Do you think that authority and obvious truth are the same thing?

Nope. What is the authority for the authority? What's it based upon?

To stop an infinite regress of justification, I just need to think that one step in the regress is obviously true, and in no need of justification.

And unless you can demonstrate what makes that true, you are engaging in circular reasoning. Because you must know that the logical question will be what makes that step true? Can you demonstrate it? If it's obviously true it should be demonstrably true. But that would probably be the wrong approach in finding the truth of any statement. You'd be better served by looking for ways to demonstrate what makes it false. You can never test something enough to determine that it's true. At what point do you sign off and plant the flag of truth to any claim? What happens tomorrow if you find an exception to that truth. Something that contradicts it. It only takes one thing to show a claim is false. When you eliminate that falsehood, you know that the claim need not be incorporated into our ideas of what is real.

In many cases, that requires no authority at all. Or, so say I. If you want to convince me otherwise, you'll have to post some kind of argument to show that there's not a single instance to the contrary.

Give me an example of something claimed that has no authority to substantiate it. You are saying in many cases...so give me an example. Your very statement requires some basis to serve as the authority for what you're saying. So you say?? That isn't going to be enough. Just saying it on your authority doesn't prove the statement as true. What makes your own statement true?

I'll just ask you, for whatever you state as your premises, why I ought to accept those. If your conclusion is correct, you'll eventually have to resort to an appeal to authority, making your conclusion false.

In a deductive syllogism the conclusion is always true, PROVIDED that the premises are true. The key is determining that the premises are in fact true. If the premises are demonstrably true, then your conclusion will always be true, because the conclusion contains the premises.
1.All men are mortal
2.Socrates is a Man
therefore:
Socrates is Mortal.

Are the premises demonstrably true? Yes. We can test them. You seem to be looking for an authority to justify an equation. If we add 2+2 we get 4. What is the authority for that? It's demonstrably true via process of elimination. We've assigned values to the numbers and we can prove the equation by subtraction. We can take 4-2 =2 and prove the equation.

Anyway, the rest of this post isn't meant to be part of a debate, so much as my attempt to show you why you're not getting very far.

I don't mean to be insulting, but it seems that you are having a lot of difficulty with some pretty simple concepts.

Well, this is not true. Not every reference. Indeed, not even most of them.

Excuse me but you have completely missed what I'm saying. "But all of our knowledge of Jesus came to us through another source. Our knowledge of him is justified by the Bible. When did you first learn of the person Jesus? It didn't float into your head. When you were young you were told about him and every reference to him came from Biblical texts." The only source of knowledge of Jesus comes from the Bible. I'm not saying that there aren't other books that reference him, but each of those looks to the Bible for it's source. We would not know who Jesus was without the Gospels. There is nothing that precedes those. There may be many books about Jesus, but the fact that any of them exist is because of the Bible figure to begin with. Anybody that may have told you about this person is referencing Bible text. That's the only knowledge that we have. The very presence of this figure comes from the Bible. There is no earlier text than that.

Uh, what? I don't see the connection between a belief that the Bible may justify Jesus' existence (do you mean, justifies a belief in Jesus' existence?) and a theory of rationality.

I'm not sure what you don't understand. The Bible is what justifies Jesus existence. If the Bible doesn't exist, there is no Jesus. That was the only source of information regarding this figure. By the same token Jesus is what justifies the Bible. The Book tells us the story, and the story is powerful enough to inspire a religion using the Bible as its source. It's a peculiar reasoning process. What makes Jesus the Lord? The Bible says so. What justifies the Bible? The existence of Jesus. What justifies Jesus? The Bible. Circular reasoning.

Why not? I don't need a theory of numbers to know that 2+2=4.

Well you apply the commutative property of addition. In short, (A+B)=(B+A).
The Associative property In short A+(B+C) = (A+B)+C.
Additive Identity : Additive Identity, is any number which when added to a number N will result in the same number. Ie, N+0=N. Hence 0 is the additive identity.
Additive Inverse : Inverse identity, is any number which when added to a number N, will result in zero. Here N + (-N) = 0. Hence, in general, additive inverse of N is –N.

I think all of those might qualify as theories of numbers. Number theory is essentially mathematics. The older term for number theory is arithmetic. By the early twentieth century, it had been superseded by "number theory.

Similarly, I don't need a theory of rationality to be rational. Rationality just seems to be a faculty. If I develop a theory of it, I just need it to comport with all my observations about that faculty, and I can use that faculty to judge whether it does so.

No, you don't. And you're far better off without one. An important thing to note is that TR (traditional rationalism) leads to irrationalism. Imagine you have a theory of rationality. How did you decide about this theory? As this is your meta-theory, it can not judge itself in terms of rationality. Any "positive" argument in regards to rationality cannot judge itself without creating a circular argument. For example:

A: Why are you rational?

B: Because I listen to God.

A: How do you know that listening to God is rational.

B: Because God told me.

That’s circular.


By asserting there is a theory of rationality, this leads you to the next move, which why is the theory of rationality, in and of itself, rational? Here you can only assert it was an irrational choice and all such first choices are by necessity irrational. As such you open the door to whole scale irrationality. If you allow one choice, then why not many.

Any *positive* argument in regards to rationality cannot judge itself without creating a circular argument. This seems false.

I think I just gave you an example that demonstrates why it's true.
 
We are? How do you figure that? What is a positive methodology for a worldview?

It means there simply is no *positive* ( assertive ) method whereby we can obtain the truth. I have to tell you, this is becoming really tiresome. Attempting to hold to such a *positive* method might narrow our viewpoint such that the quest for truth is made more difficult. In an attempt to get our decision about the truth to fit with some narrow view of what the method of truth *should* be, we will be restricting ourselves in a way that is unnecessary. After all, there is no one method that is the end-all-be-all of obtaining truth. There’s no way to create an algorithm that would determine truth.

Well, with the caveat that no one can know with complete certainty, I would place my money on experience. Of the religions that tell stories about how the religions themselves get started, those stories all involve a prophet of some kind getting some kind of experience. There are some pretty powerful arguments that come out of neurolinguistics which suggest that people don't invent very many concepts with no experiential basis whatsoever. And the findings of neurotheology and psychology suggest quite strongly that some people naturally have religious experiences.

I'm sure there are many theories on this. Another may be that the person in question was suffering under some kind of delusion, or misapprehension. Maybe it was some bad fish that he ate. It's really another theory of rationality at work. A positive methodology for finding Truth.

If it is true that A = B and C = A, then it also has to be true that C = B. It has to be. "Now, what is your basis for making such a claim? I mean, given the fact that you keep pushing the point of view that foundational statements must have some basis, you surely have a basis for this claim. If your basis is something like "well, it's just dumb to deny this," that's technically an ad hominem argument against anyone who would deny it. Not terribly rational.

Now you choose to put words in my mouth by suggesting what I might say?? That's a pretty lame assumption on your part. It's true because It is demonstrably true. It's not an aimless assertion. It agrees with the associative property of addition. It is open to falsification. It can be tested. It can be proven. Pythagoras believed all things are numbers and that Mathematics is the basis for everything, and geometry is the highest form of mathematical studies. ( He didn't anticipate Einstein )The physical world can be understood through mathematics. In other words, numbers are not abstractions. They are real things. The concepts that we are talking about are abstract. You can demonstrate that if A=B, and B=C, then A = C. You cannot demonstrate that God exists. I would hope you can see the difference.
 
adagio said:
Ok. I've been away for a while. But I'm back and looking at this post.

Well, welcome back.

adagio said:
You say this: "I've spent my life studying it. To answer your question, no, I've never run into this problem. Not once. I cannot think of a single philosopher, out of hundreds or thousands whose papers and books I have read that would think this is a problem. What you seem to be saying is this:"

It appears that we are talking about the problem of infinite regress, and you seem to be saying that in all your years of teaching philosophy and studying it, you've never encountered this? Is that it?

No, that's not what I'm saying. Please: if you're going to start the conversation up again, read the relevant posts carefully.

What started this was your claim, in post 226 of this thread, that:

adagio said:
The circular reasoning fallacy will always come up when infinite regress takes place.

That claim is false as far as I can tell. Infinite regresses are linear, not circular. They do not involve circular reasoning. Infinite regress and circular reasoning are distinct problems. An infinite regress isn't even a kind of argument. To have circular reasoning you need an argument.

adagio said:
I have not said that infinite regress = circular reasoning. I said that it leads to it. It leads to it, because when caught in a spiral of infinite regress, there is no way out of it, without saying at some point, I believe it because I believe it.

Again, this seems false. Saying "I believe it because I believe it" might well be circular (depends on context). But saying "I believe it because it's just obvious" isn't. It also stops the infinite regress.

Adagio said:
You cannot base a belief on itself with using the belief as its own justification. So you are left with two options: follow the topic into infinite regress...OR, take a stand using that stand to justify the stand. That's circular reasoning. Are we clear?

No, I have no idea what you're saying here. You seem to be contradicting yourself.

adagio said:
But numbers are not abstract ideas.

So, how will you argue for that? More to the point, so what?

Adagio said:
An abstract concept about any issue that bases itself on some foundation fails to address the foundation for the foundation. If you are going to presume foundationalist thinking, then it goes without saying that the foundation must also have a foundation as it cannot be it's own foundation.

I disagree. You keep saying this but you've never argued for it. Foundations are propositions that require no further justification. That is a property they have. Arguments from foundations do not conclude with those foundations, hence no circularity.

Now, you can argue that in fact no propositions are in such a set. But if you do so, to be consistent, you'll have to have an infinite regress. Whatever you say in response, I'll just ask you to justify it, ad infinitum.

Adagio said:
Again you miss the point. Of course there is no circularity. You're locked into infinite regress. And you'll stay there without ever justifying God 1. You jump to God 2 and then God 3 ad infinitum. There is no reason to accept that as a justification for anything. You can try to continue this endless exercise but you'll never find the basis for the basis of what you claim. At some point if pressed long enough, your only escape is through circular reasoning.

I disagree with your claim. Suppose the pronouncements of God100 are foundational. I don't need to look for God101.

Adagio said:
I believe God 1 because I believe it without any further justification. Or you can admit that there will never be anything to conclude the exercise. In which case, if you still choose to believe it, you'll use it for its own justification.

Or, just say it needs no justification. In this case, I agree there would be reason to be skeptical of such a claim. But I think the situation changes if you try to say that we should be skeptical, or even that we can be skeptical, of all such claims (i.e. all claims that some proposition requires no justification). You yourself seem to be making such claims, or at least, you're being rather stubborn about providing justification.

Adagio said:
And unless you can demonstrate what makes that true, you are engaging in circular reasoning.

No, this is also false. If I'm walking down the street one day, and it starts raining, I can just see that it's raining. I don't need any further justification for the proposition "it's raining."

Adagio said:
Because you must know that the logical question will be what makes that step true? Can you demonstrate it? If it's obviously true it should be demonstrably true.

If you mean "demonstration" in the way that philosophers like Hume and Locke used the term, this is, again, false. The proposition "it's raining" is an observation statement. It cannot be demonstrated (in that sense). But if you don't mean to use demonstration in that sense, it doesn't seem you have much of a case.

Adagio said:
But that would probably be the wrong approach in finding the truth of any statement. You'd be better served by looking for ways to demonstrate what makes it false.

This seems like you just dove off a cliff or something. I see no reason for this move at all.

Adagio said:
You can never test something enough to determine that it's true.

Well, that might mean something if to know the truth of all claims, we had to test them. I can know that the proposition "there are no four-sided triangles" is true without doing any testing.

Adagio said:
At what point do you sign off and plant the flag of truth to any claim? What happens tomorrow if you find an exception to that truth. Something that contradicts it. It only takes one thing to show a claim is false. When you eliminate that falsehood, you know that the claim need not be incorporated into our ideas of what is real.

It seems to me that you're talking about "real" in an unwarranted sense. Either it's a synonym for "true," in which case you've got some explaining to do, or you're positing a world about which true propositions might be formulated...in which case, you've still got some explaining to do.

Adagio said:
Give me an example of something claimed that has no authority to substantiate it. You are saying in many cases...so give me an example.

Sure. Here are several propositions which I accept as true on the basis of no authority:

1) There are no four-sided triangles.

2) There are no married bachelors in w.

3) All squares are polygons.

4) I love my daughter.

5) Modus Tollens is a valid inferential form.

6) The Indiscernibility of Identicals is true.

7) If K is entailed in S, K is necessarily true in S.

8) One of my dogs is currently snoring.

Adagio said:
If your conclusion is correct, you'll eventually have to resort to an appeal to authority, making your conclusion false.

I have no idea why you think this would make a true conclusion false. It obviously wouldn't.

Adagio said:
In a deductive syllogism the conclusion is always true, PROVIDED that the premises are true. The key is determining that the premises are in fact true. If the premises are demonstrably true, then your conclusion will always be true, because the conclusion contains the premises.

You need to justify these claims. However you do it, I'll ask you to justify those claims, and so on. You either have to admit there will be an infinite regress, or a point where you just stop and say "but, it's just obvious." Either way, you're forced to acknowledge my point.

Adagio said:
Are the premises demonstrably true? Yes. We can test them. You seem to be looking for an authority to justify an equation. If we add 2+2 we get 4. What is the authority for that? It's demonstrably true via process of elimination. We've assigned values to the numbers and we can prove the equation by subtraction. We can take 4-2 =2 and prove the equation.

OK, so without going back to 2+2=4, justify that 4-2=2, and also state (and justify) whatever principle you're using to connect the two statements (i.e. that 2+2=4 has some relevant connection to 4-2=2). Again, whatever you say, I'm going to ask you to justify that, and whatever you say, I'm going to ask you to justify that, and so on. Either you'll have an infinite regress, in which case, it looks like you never justified anything, or you'll get to a foundational statement. Either way, my case is correct.

Adagio said:
I don't mean to be insulting, but it seems that you are having a lot of difficulty with some pretty simple concepts.

Are you saying that their simplicity is what justifies them? How does that avoid foundationalism? It seems pretty clear it doesn't.

Adagio said:
The only source of knowledge of Jesus comes from the Bible. I'm not saying that there aren't other books that reference him, but each of those looks to the Bible for it's source. We would not know who Jesus was without the Gospels. There is nothing that precedes those. There may be many books about Jesus, but the fact that any of them exist is because of the Bible figure to begin with. Anybody that may have told you about this person is referencing Bible text. That's the only knowledge that we have. The very presence of this figure comes from the Bible. There is no earlier text than that.

Alright, now you're getting somewhere. This is more clear, and I understand what you're saying. I would say that mostly, you are correct (For instance, Josephus didn't refer to the gospels for his brief comments on Jesus, but that's a minor point). So, now I get what you're saying. I'm not sure what substantive point is supposed to follow from this, however.

Adagio said:
I'm not sure what you don't understand. The Bible is what justifies Jesus existence. If the Bible doesn't exist, there is no Jesus.

What I don't understand is why you think this has to do with a theory of rationality...or, better yet, why you seem to think it necessarily has to do with a theory of rationality for someone who believes in Jesus. Not everyone who believes in Jesus thinks the Bible is the touchstone of rationality. Indeed, plenty of people who believe in Jesus think the Bible is mostly irrational, and is therefore unfit to serve as a basis of rationality.

Also, suppose the Bible didn't exist. Are you saying then that, necessarily, Jesis wouldn't have existed?

Adagio said:
That was the only source of information regarding this figure. By the same token Jesus is what justifies the Bible. The Book tells us the story, and the story is powerful enough to inspire a religion using the Bible as its source. It's a peculiar reasoning process. What makes Jesus the Lord? The Bible says so. What justifies the Bible? The existence of Jesus. What justifies Jesus? The Bible. Circular reasoning.

I'm aware that some people think, and even argue, this way. But not very many Christians, at least the ones with whom I am acquainted, seem to think this way. The gospels convey knowledge about Jesus, but Jesus does not confer authority on the gospels. The gospels are believed because they purport to be historical documents, they were supported by the early church, etc.

Adagio said:
Why not? I don't need a theory of numbers to know that 2+2=4. Well you apply the commutative property of addition. In short, (A+B)=(B+A).
The Associative property In short A+(B+C) = (A+B)+C.
Additive Identity : Additive Identity, is any number which when added to a number N will result in the same number. Ie, N+0=N. Hence 0 is the additive identity.
Additive Inverse : Inverse identity, is any number which when added to a number N, will result in zero. Here N + (-N) = 0. Hence, in general, additive inverse of N is –N.

Yeah, but are you saying that to know the fact that 2+2=4, I need to know that other stuff? Surely not...I know two-year-olds who know that 2+2=4. I doubt very seriously they know anything about the commutative and associative properties of addition.

Similarly, I don't need a theory of rationality in order to be rational. Rationality seems like a faculty. I can just be rational, without knowing what it means to be rational.

Adagio said:
I think I just gave you an example that demonstrates why it's true.

None that I can see.
 
Adagio said:
It means there simply is no *positive* ( assertive ) method whereby we can obtain the truth.

You'll have to be more clear about what an assertive method is, but it seems you've just made an assertion that something is true of at least some kinds of methods. If you were just making such an assertion about assertions, I could at least acknowledge it might be reasonable to make the usual skeptic's reply. But it doesn't seem like that would apply in this case. In short, you appear to be contradicting yourself.

Adagio said:
I have to tell you, this is becoming really tiresome. Attempting to hold to such a *positive* method might narrow our viewpoint such that the quest for truth is made more difficult.

Sure. So what? That's the situation we're in, and no matter what we do, we won't ever get out of it. You have a very "enlightenment" view of epistemology. I don't think very many people are after the Truth-with-a-capital-T, full-stop, any more. Everyone (in philosophy, anyway) is more or less aware that it's possible to formulate a consistent skeptical position strong enough to deny any proposition. So, we have to make due. We've abandoned the goals of people like Descartes and Liebniz (more or less).

Now, since I'm on about history for a moment, I should say it's true we've also abandoned foundationalism. Descartes and Liebniz (and Spinoza, and even Locke) were foundationalists. The reason we've abandoned them is because we know it's not possible to avoid error, not because we doubt that there have to be assumptions at some point which we just take to be true. It's pretty obvious that we really cannot abandon that, for exactly the reasons I've been saying.

Adagio said:
I'm sure there are many theories on this. Another may be that the person in question was suffering under some kind of delusion, or misapprehension. Maybe it was some bad fish that he ate. It's really another theory of rationality at work. A positive methodology for finding Truth.

There are some people who believe this sort of thing is the best explanation for religious experience, but this seems to be a pretty difficult view to sustain, for a few reasons:

1) Religious experience is remarkably widespread. There's never been a single culture which was entirely devoid of religious concepts.

2) People who have religious experiences aren't usually "nuts" in any obvious way. Most of them seem to be quite reasonable, and capable of reason.

3) Those same people report phenomenology that doesn't sound so simple to dismiss the way we might an ordinary halucination.

4) The sorts of similarities that seem to cross cultures aren't easily explained by reference to physiology--this isn't to say that it cannot be done, merely that it's not very obvious how we'd go about it.

Adagio said:
Now you choose to put words in my mouth by suggesting what I might say??

Suggesting what you might say isn't putting words in your mouth (i.e. it's not a claim that "Adagio said x"). Nor is it an assumption (an assertion that x is true). Anticipating possible reactions is a valuable skill in debate.

Adagio said:
It's true because It is demonstrably true. It's not an aimless assertion.

What do you mean by "demonstrable"? It seems you could mean one of two things:

1) You could mean that it's formally provable. In that case, you'll have principles at work in your system of proof. I'll ask you to justify those. And now one of two situations will arise. Either you'll invoke an infinite regress of justification, in which case all the paradoxes of infinite regress ensue, or you'll just get to a place where the truth of the principles in question will require no justification, in which case, you're a foundationlist.

2) You could mean that it's just obvious, in which case (as per the above) you're a foundationalist.

Feel free to try to find some way out of this dilemma.

One thing that occurs to me to change, however: I'm going to stop, as of this moment, talking about foundationalism just as such, as that's too packed with historical meaning. Instead, I'm going to talk about the "principle of foundation" which is just the idea that our arguments have to start with certain assumptions, along with the view that knowledge is at least possible to unify, such that eventually, we would find assumptions which underwrite all disciplines, and which require no justification.

Adagio said:
It agrees with the associative property of addition. It is open to falsification. It can be tested. It can be proven. Pythagoras believed all things are numbers and that Mathematics is the basis for everything, and geometry is the highest form of mathematical studies. ( He didn't anticipate Einstein )The physical world can be understood through mathematics. In other words, numbers are not abstractions. They are real things. The concepts that we are talking about are abstract. You can demonstrate that if A=B, and B=C, then A = C. You cannot demonstrate that God exists. I would hope you can see the difference.

All of this stuff is either justifiable, or it's not. You're asking me to believe it. If it's true because it's obvious, you believe in the principle of foundation. If it's true because it can be justified, then either you believe in the principle of foundation, or you'll invoke an infinite regress.
 
Someone used the fallacy of begging the question in another thread in first assuming that if God doesn't exist, life has no meaning.

What about God(s) gives life meaning?




God/Creator/Source "is" life....We are all Spiritual Beings temporarily in a physical body and this is not our true Home...This spiritual part of us is of the substance of God,... We are animated by that Spirit, so without God, there would be no us, no creation, no evolution, no anything...
 
I don't understand how it gives meaning to people it just does .... I don't question it since I don't have any personal knowledge so I cant pass judgment . It would be like someone who talks about the weather but who does not actually know anything about it .
 
I don't understand how it gives meaning to people it just does .... I don't question it since I don't have any personal knowledge so I cant pass judgment . It would be like someone who talks about the weather but who does not actually know anything about it .

you can't know that it DOES give life meaning if it can't be proven that God exists.

the question should be - does belief in God give ;life meaning?

for some, no doubt it does - but for most of us life has plenty of meaning, whether we believe in God or not.
 
you can't know that it DOES give life meaning if it can't be proven that God exists.

the question should be - does belief in God give ;life meaning?

for some, no doubt it does - but for most of us life has plenty of meaning, whether we believe in God or not.
I believe God gives life reason.

Written based on treks in the Himalayas. Such beauty could only come from a creator. Written by one of my teachers.

“In Praise of Climbing” from I have loved Beauty by Vera Frances I HAVE LOVED BEAUTY

Grey are the rocks and blue the sky,
The ridge is treeless, the sweet grass dry,
And the untamed winds of the northern height
Speed the track of the eagles’ flight.

This sun-drenched wilderness weaves its spell
O’er us who down in the valley dwell,
And lost is the peace and fled content
‘Till our feet on the upward path are bent.

Toil is sweet in the crisp, clear air
And courage is high to do and dare.
While the narrow path and precipitous hill
Our hearts with the joys of adventure fill.

The snows loom high in a radiant chain,
The Custura flutes its morning strain;
The misty dew on the browning grass
Leaves us wet, as our footsteps pass.

So up and up with the sun we climb
Unheeding the moments of fleeting time,
‘Till we panting rest on the rock-strewn heights
Bathed in the splendour of noontide light.

The lo! A thrill both strange and sweet
Creeps over us, for at our feet
Serene and dewy, gentians lie
Open to the wild, blue sky.

Even to our expectant eyes
Comes some form of sweet surprise;
But who could guess, this crag that towers
Gaunt and bare, was blue with flowers?

Who could see, while distant yet
Against the grey, blue’s coronet?
Is climbing then, too hard a price
To pay to enter paradise?
 
Re: How does God(s)'s existence give life meaning?

Without god, there is no hope of an after-life and thus you are condemned to be in darkness for the next hundred trillion years. No god, no after-life. It's the only game in town.

You are not condemned to anything but death like every other creature. There is no darkness either.

“Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent,” Steve Jobs
 
Re: How does God(s)'s existence give life meaning?

Its been quite a while since that post was made but I'll guess that I was being a bit facetious.

Still, I see a lot of declarative statements in this thread. Including yours. Not one of you has the slightest idea what happens upon death. Thinking you know something is what we call an opinion, not a fact. Do I personally believe in an after life? No, it seems improbable to me. Is it dark for dead people? Yes, probably. Is 100 trillion years a carefully researched figure? No, I chose it because the universe will likely have evaporated by then.


You are not condemned to anything but death like every other creature. There is no darkness either.

“Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent,” Steve Jobs
 
Re: How does God(s)'s existence give life meaning?

Its been quite a while since that post was made but I'll guess that I was being a bit facetious.

Still, I see a lot of declarative statements in this thread. Including yours. Not one of you has the slightest idea what happens upon death. Thinking you know something is what we call an opinion, not a fact. Do I personally believe in an after life? No, it seems improbable to me. Is it dark for dead people? Yes, probably. Is 100 trillion years a carefully researched figure? No, I chose it because the universe will likely have evaporated by then.

I don't get the dark part but this is a morbid subject and not something I like to spend time on. I'll leave that to the religious folk, they seem enthralled by it. I have noticed that in my experience from people around me, the closer you get to death the less you believe in an afterlife. I'm not sure why that would be but I have seen it more than once.
 
Re: How does God(s)'s existence give life meaning?

By meaning, I assume you mean importance, or worthy of attention.

If there is no God, who is there to deem us "worthy?" Who is there to deem us deserving of respect or attention?

if we think " we would be evil if there was no god "

it just means we dont know how to believe
 
I believe God gives life reason.

Written based on treks in the Himalayas. Such beauty could only come from a creator. Written by one of my teachers.

“In Praise of Climbing” from I have loved Beauty by Vera Frances I HAVE LOVED BEAUTY

Grey are the rocks and blue the sky,
The ridge is treeless, the sweet grass dry,
And the untamed winds of the northern height
Speed the track of the eagles’ flight.

This sun-drenched wilderness weaves its spell
O’er us who down in the valley dwell,
And lost is the peace and fled content
‘Till our feet on the upward path are bent.

Toil is sweet in the crisp, clear air
And courage is high to do and dare.
While the narrow path and precipitous hill
Our hearts with the joys of adventure fill.

The snows loom high in a radiant chain,
The Custura flutes its morning strain;
The misty dew on the browning grass
Leaves us wet, as our footsteps pass.

So up and up with the sun we climb
Unheeding the moments of fleeting time,
‘Till we panting rest on the rock-strewn heights
Bathed in the splendour of noontide light.

The lo! A thrill both strange and sweet
Creeps over us, for at our feet
Serene and dewy, gentians lie
Open to the wild, blue sky.

Even to our expectant eyes
Comes some form of sweet surprise;
But who could guess, this crag that towers
Gaunt and bare, was blue with flowers?

Who could see, while distant yet
Against the grey, blue’s coronet?
Is climbing then, too hard a price
To pay to enter paradise?

I don't see why beauty needs to come from a creator, and I don't need faith in God to give me a reason for living, to give my life meaning, to enable me to appreciate what I have and the many things that make up my life, or to make me choose to live a life in consideration of others.

Some people may need that, and if it works for them, that is fine, but for me the fact that beauty can be spontaneous, rather than by design, only serves to enhance that beauty, and makes me appreciate it even more.
 
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